Am I a Fool For Wanting To Be a Speculator?

zghorner said:
The more I meditate on this the more i feel that I tried to convince myself that being a speculator would be a meaningful life pursuit...when in reality i think that deep down I hoped it would be an expedient path to wealth. Now that my bubble of naivety has been popped I see what an absurd notion that was. I think this has all been a classic case of "get rich quick" dreaming under the veil or lie that "i want to be a trader because that would bring meaning to my life". Sad really. Not sure where to go from here.
I really do appreciate you all taking the time to comment on this thread it has helped me out.
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WELL I had a car dealer give me 2 lotto tickets, a stupid tax on people that cant do math/get rich quick.But since my cost was $oo.00. I scratched them + no harm or win done.LOL .IF I was you, I would invest every month or quarter, in some thing like Fidelity....... ContraFund. SPY ,QQQ........
Once you get math mature,ZH horner you can be wrong+ wrong a lot + still make money.I was fairly bearish + wrong last week of DEC, on QQQ. BUT since it is a bull market I was in UPRO or SPXL + SPY so still made money, lots better than cash. But QQQ did a lot better the last week or 2, than SPY,; UPRO+ SPXL did better than QQQ.
BUT SPXL + UPRO don't pay as good a dividend as SPY. Dave Ramsey books + Jack Schwager/ Blair Hull interview/book helped. Cutting yards as a kid helped
 
wave said:
Trading in tickers is just as much a merchandising business as buying and selling cars...understand this and you will do well.

Cost basis reduction...
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Plenty of patterns are alike;
but bid ask spread is much better on stocks+ ETFs, for buyer + seller. Stocks/ETfs are a much better investment +trade than autos, unless one is auto dealer.LOL Like Dave Ramsey says the Chevy ad '' like a rock'' is the deprecating value, like a rock LOL.
Most of money made in uptrending bull market is buy high + sell higher+ buy on a correction + sell higher.
M Dell made enough throwing newspapers to buy a BMW, as a school kid. I never made that much as a kid or wasted that much money on a new auto. LOL Almost wasted that much money on a 2 news cars LOL. Trading/investing books may lose value like an auto, but have a much better commercial use than a personal auto................................................................
Have to factor in personality. I would not have or buy TSLA or its stock; if I got one/both as gift I would sell asap/asap:D:D, :D:D:D:D:D:caution::caution::caution::caution:.LOL
 
Pekelo said:
Why not both? Instead of being a day trader, just have a normal job and speculate on the side. You don't need to be glued to a screen if your time frame is days or weeks. This way you also have job security and secured income coming in. If you make something on the side, good. But if you lose a little you are still fine and your world won't be rocked. And if your little side project is going really well after 6-12 months, you can sit down and evaluate your choices again.

The best returns posted on r/WSB are all option trades going on for days if not for weeks. Try to get motivation from that.
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So true. The day I changed my day trading style was the day I turned positive: Changing from closing out my trades at the end of everyday to keeping my trades for days and sometimes weeks.
 
@zghorner, don't be too hard on yourself. Speculate is not a dirty word. Everything we do in life we speculate.

The stock market needs speculators to function, we provide liquidity, folks off load risks on us.... It is important to be in the market to beat inflation and the depreciation of paper currencies. For some, buy and hold is a profitable niche, for others trading.

Good luck and best wishes.
 
Kind of similar question, worthy of reading:

https://www.reddit.com/r/path%3D%252Fr%252Foptions%252Fcomments%252Fevvlxl%252F

One of the responses:

"There's a reason professional traders have a fixed base salary + bonuses from performance.

Trading full time as a retail trader is a terrible idea unless you have other sources of income that can sustain your basic needs (rent/mortgage, food, transport, insurance etc). You'll have days with bad drawdown, occasional margin calls if you don't manage well and the occasional black swan. Without a stable source of income you'll try to make riskier trades to make up for losses.

Doing this on forex is even worse - it's the most manipulated market in the world. You'd be better of getting some source of income (heck, driving Uber works too) and trading on the side to augment it."
 
ironchef said:
So true. The day I changed my day trading style was the day I turned positive: Changing from closing out my trades at the end of everyday to keeping my trades for days and sometimes weeks.
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Most of the millions + billions are made in the stock/ETF market, by market makers + specialists + regular persistent investors............................................................................
 
danielc1 said:
The statistics are not true. It is more like 100% of the traders will find succes if they follow some simple rules:
1. Go find something to support your lifestyle. You can only support your lifestyle with trading when you are consistent profitable.
2. To get consistent profitable you must develop a system that suits your personality.
3. There for your first job is really knowing who you are and if you have some trauma in your life that upsets you from the past and is not handled properly. Seek a therapist if this is so
4. When you know yourself, you can start developing a system.
5. First write down what your trading has to accomplish for you. Objective’s
5. A good system trades from the bigger picture, where you zoom in to control the risk you are going to take and where you have a risk ratio of 1 to 3 or more.
6. Learn about expectancy and money management to meet your objective’s.
7. If you are stuck, go find help. Thinking about it does not work.
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Thats almost precisely how trading should be approached.!!
 
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